School Bus Rocket
Where are you from?

  The first story, School Bus Rocket, teaches a simple geography of the earth in space for the early primary school grades, K-2. The story draws some inspiration from Joanne Cole's Magic School Bus (scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/index.htm) series as well as the United Nations' Cyber School Bus (un.org/Pubs/CyberSchoolBus/) web pages, but the author, Joseph Adams, conceived the story as a means to teach learners of English-as-a-second language in Japan. (In the current English version of the story, Japanese-as-a-second language replaces English.) The story-line is simple and is teachable in two parts. In the first part, we travel from the earth, through the solar system, the Milky Way, and other galaxies where we run low on gas and discover a black hole and a UFO. Students decide whether to enter the Black Hole or ask the UFO. Part two resumes depending on the students decision to enter the Black Hole or ask the UFO for an escort back to Earth. The following is a description of the three lesson unit I taught in Japanese primary school classes:

Three Lesson Unit Plan

First Lesson (part 1 -- pictures 1 through 5 of the storyboard)

Objectives

• Become comfortable using the foreign language phrase, "Where are you from?"
• Identify and locate the region on the globe where a visiting foreigner comes from.
• Locate the earth's position is in the solar system and learn foreign words for Earth, Sun, Moon, Stars, Solar System, Milky Way, the Universe.
• Locate the Solar System in the Milky Way, and distinguish the Milky Way as one galaxy among many in the Universe.
• Decide whether to enter a Black Hole or ask a U.F.O. for help.

Second Lesson (part 2 -- pictures 6 through 10 of the storyboard) story continued from the previous lesson.  Return to Earth and draw a picture.

Objectives

• Discover the consequences of entering a black hole and asking the UFO for help.
• Review the phrase (in the foreign language) "Where are you from?"; and answer "We are from Earth!" The UFO guides us (through the story-board) back to Earth and we learn the phrase "Thank you, please come again!," in the foreign language.
• After discussion of the story and students' favorite parts, children draw a picture incorporating elements of their favorite parts. The picture becomes the first page in a picture book we make to remember our monthly global studies/English lessons.  See the sample picture above.

Third Lesson (review and games)  Final review and game using the foreign language words for Earth, Sun, Moon, Stars, Solar System, Milky Way, the Universe.

• Complete the first page of the picture book;
• Present the pictures to the class.
• Play the word recognition game KARUTA or BINGO to review the words from the story one last time.

Summative Assesment: Quiz using the following questions: "What's your name?; Where are you from?," vocabulary words.

Student Survey
(one year after the class Fall 1997)

Lower primary grades

Nakamichi-Kita primary school, third grade (actual class second grade), 29 students

1) What did you think of the lesson?

• It was good and fun (6 students). Traveling through space, we could see the earth and black holes, and learn English words too (5). We understand space, see where the earth is and where there are black holes (5 students). The story board was really fun (3). The bingo game and KARUTA game was fun (3). I want to see it again (3).   Joe taught us a lot, I could understand, and it was interesting (2). I thought that the Milky Way was beautiful (1). The Milky Way part of the story was fun (1). There were fun parts and difficult parts (1).  It was really fun and I felt like I was on a trip (1). It wasn't like a picture, it was like it was real (1). I didn't understand it at first, but then I caught on (1).

2) What was the best part?

• Going into the black hole (9 students). Drawing our own picture (4). The School Bus Rocket was the best (3). Drawing our own bus was the best (2). Seeing the Milky Way was the best (2). I could understand space well (2). The black hole looked like it was going to collapse (1). The picture of the earth was interesting (1).  The big earth was the best (1). I could learn a little English (1). When we took-off into space (1).

back to the story

back to the K-2 introduction